Highlights and context: Ugly night for Portland in Colorado

You won’t get a better idea of how deep, insidious, and inexplicable Portland’s road issues are than by looking at the last six days’ results. On Friday, the Timbers convincingly beat Colorado at Jeld-Wen to climb out of last place in the West. On Wednesday, they made that result look like an aberration.

Within minutes of the opening kickoff, Tony Cascio had put a shot off Donovan Ricketts’ right post. The Rapids’ rookie would eventually push Colorado in front, with Anthony Akpan doubling the hosts’ lead before intermission. In the second half, a turned-off Timbers team allowed Jaime Castrillon to head home a team-leading seventh goal of the season. Colorado went on to win, 3-0.

It was a terrible performance that will undoubtedly give Timbers fans more cause to disdain the trade that sent fan favorite Troy Perkins to Montreal for Donovan Ricketts. It wasn’t the Jamaican international’s best night, but he was also hung out to dry by a defense which showed little of the determination that shutout the Rapids over the previous 90 minutes.

It’s hard to fault any single player when the Timbers continue to show remarkable inconsistency between home and road. Still winless outside of Portland this season, Gavin Wilkinson may have missed his best chance to avoid an ignominious distinction.

For Colorado, a Cascio versus Kosuke Kimura matchup that they tried to exploit on Friday paid off in Commerce, leading to the former Rapids defender’s worst night as a Timber. And one of Oscar Pareja’s two changes (Akpan for Conor Casey) paid off with a goal, another instance of Portland’s defense failing to react to a Ricketts save.

The win pushes Colorado past Portland in the West, having outscored the Timbers 6-1 in the teams’ two meetings at DSG Park.

Here are the highlights: